Dear Readers,
It is my pleasure to present you with the sixteenth volume of the UC Undergraduate Journal of Slavic and East/Central European Studies. This year’s papers span topics that include literary studies, history, political science, and media studies, and they come to us from a diverse collection of universities across the US and the UK. Three come from our own backyard, UCLA, and five were presented at the University of California Undergraduate Conference on Slavic and East/Central European Studies, harkening back to the journal’s original mission to publish the conference proceedings.
The purpose of both that conference and this journal has always been to provide a platform for undergraduate students to present their research achievements using the languages of East/Central Europe and Eurasia. A comforting constant in the last sixteen years of tumult, violence, and change has been the high caliber of work we’ve received from our authors, and this year is no exception. It remains our steadfast belief that the future of our field lies with researchers like the ones represented in the pages of our journal, and we are very happy to share their accomplishments with you.
Some of the papers published in this volume address questions that have dogged scientific study for generations; others engage with and comment on the current state of affairs. Perhaps it was inevitable that in the first issue edited in its entirety after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, all the papers we received addressed the looming question of authoritarian Russia. Ultimately, laying out the ramifications of Russian imperialism so explicitly does not necessarily make them easier to understand, only more pressing. Our authors nevertheless took up the call in admirable fashion and provided the results we now share with you, our readers.
Kyle Tucker (Indiana University) and William Ledesma (Vanderbilt University) examine present-day Russian politics. Tucker’s paper, “The Evolution of Russia’s Nuclear Weapons Doctrine,” paints a portrait of a strategic deterrence program more interested in bluster than abeyance and offers a glimpse into the future of Russia’s nuclear thought. Ledesma’s, “Vladislav Surkov: The (In)visible Hand of Russian Politics and Culture” investigates the Kremlin’s most enigmatic figure to illustrate Russia’s turbulent relationship to civic liberty; in doing so, it adumbrates a theoretical framework for one of the world’s least transparent political systems—no small feat.
The next two papers pursue a more comparative approach in answering how Russia got to where it is today. Juliette Oliver’s (UCLA) paper “Angola Then and Now: Investigating Soviet and Russian Intervention in Africa” details the fight for the “hearts and minds” of Angolans waged by the US and the USSR. It not only elucidates a corner of Cold War history, but contextualizes Russian holistic investment in Africa today. In her paper “Post-Communist Responses to LGBT Activism: A Comparative Case Study of Russia and the Czech Republic,” Alexis Hill (UCLA) sheds light on how and why radically divergent approaches to LGBT activism developed since the collapse of the Soviet Union and offers a prescription for a more tolerant world as much as a historical analysis.
Moving away (but not too far) from politics, Anastasia Izmailova (UCLA), in her paper “Resisting Identity Suppression through the Act of Writing in Zamyatin’s We and Orwell’s 1984,” offers insight into the psychological effects of political oppression and the nature of truth and its manipulation through an illuminating comparison of dystopias with anti-utopias. Finally, Georgia Boote (University of Birmingham, UK) offers a note of optimism in her analysis of digitally networked activism during the Free Navalny protests and the new avenues for political participation this activism offers in a country notoriously void of such opportunities.
The publication of this journal is, as always, a team effort, and we have many people to thank. We extend one more hearty congratulations to our contributors, and welcome future submissions from undergraduate scholars interested in East Europe and Eurasia. We express our gratitude to Yelena Furman, undergraduate mentor and so much more at the UCLA Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures. Thanks are also in order for: Ryan Fogle, webmaster at the UCLA International Institute as well as all members of the editorial board, whose help is an invaluable part of the review process. However, it is to Susan Bauckus, our online editor, that we’d like to extend a special note of gratitude. Having worked with the journal since its inception, she is now moving on to a new life in retirement. Without her editorial meticulousness over the years and devotion to quality, the journal would surely be all the poorer. As always, we remember Olga Kagan, who founded this journal sixteen years ago out of a dedication to supporting young and novel scholarship.
Finally, we deeply appreciate the Center for European and Eurasian Studies and the UCLA Office of the Dean of Humanities, whose support makes this journal possible.
Cooper Lynn
Managing Editor